Starting a Blog: Week 19

For those who don’t know I decided that I wanted to chronicle my experience of starting a blog. The intent is so others can learn what it takes to start a blog, learn from my mistakes throughout the process, and to hopefully provide some humor and enjoyment to your day. I think I will run this “Starting a Blog” series for 52 weeks to provide a well-rounded beginning to starting a blog that you fully intend to turn into a business.

If you want tolearn how to start a blog, I created a tutorial on how to do so through Bluehost. (Please know, that I am an affiliate partner for Bluehost which means I would earn a little bit of money if you decide to purchase through my link. But, I promise to always be honest and to only recommend those things that I personally use and enjoy!)

I’ve decided these weekly updates will be posted on weekends and will consist of 7 categories to help summarize my progress each week.

Blog posts that I published

Blog Improvements

Personal Accomplishments

Extra Income I earned

Extra Income I received

Goals I accomplished during the week

Goals for Next Week

I know this will be very similar to my monthly income reports, but I think having weekly and monthly goals are going to help me stay focused and break my bigger goals down into smaller ones. This should help me in accomplishing my monthly goals, but also allow me to celebrate additional small successes that may happen throughout each week.

Week 19 is over, and boy did it go by fast! I feel like I got nothing accomplished this week because it was such a blue. But if I give myself some credit, I did accomplish quite a bit just not necessarily on updating and improving my blog. So, this week was a great week for earning some extra income. I had quite a few mystery shops pop up at the last minute and I met my personal Goodreads reading goal for the year! I did some other things too but I will wait to share those below!

I think I’ve just started to become very overwhelmed with the whole process of trying to improve this blog. I have struggled a lot recently with poor time management and I am really focused on correcting that this week. Honestly, my husband keeps reminding me that I started this blog out of my desire to help people. I’m not helping anyone if I am stressing myself out and getting overwhelmed. So, maybe I need to take a few steps back. I’ve been treating this blog like a job for the past 4 months. It’s always been in the back of my mind that I need to constantly be doing something to improve or I am going to fail. But really, let’s think about that for a minute. I’ve created something I am proud of. I have made some money from this (even if it’s a super small amount), and I have gained some followers and a tiny audience. I have taught myself how to do everything related to this blog and have literally started this blog from scratch. I think it’s okay to admit I put too much pressure on myself. I don’t know what I’m doing all of the time, and that causes me to just not be productive at all.

So, I am going to set designated time for me to work on my blog each week. I want to start keeping track of the amount of time I spend on tasks related to blogging, and I want to find a good work/life balance while still focusing on meeting my personal and professional goals. I think this is the whole reason I started this “Starting a Blog” series and why I desperately don’t want to stop. I hate admitting when I feel like I’m failing, and the past few months I feel like this is what I have been doing. Failing. But, I know deep down this isn’t true. I want for you to be able to read along in this journey, and during those weeks when you feel like you just aren’t making it, I want you to know that, that is okay. I want you to be able to take a step back, breathe, re-evaluate, and set a new plan. I’ve made quite a few mistakes while building this wonderful bog. But, it’s still mine and I love it. So I’m not going to stop, I just may slow down a bit. Who knows, maybe allowing myself to slow down will allow myself to improve as well! We shall see! Anyways, on to the good stuff you want to read about!

Blog Posts:

I did not post any other posts this week. Although, I have a post ready and sitting under “private” waiting for me to hit publish. I was just waiting to hear back from an affiliate partner before I did. However, I decided I’m going to publish this post this week regardless because I think you will really enjoy it! Be on the look out!

Blog Improvements:

I attended 2 free webinar trainings this week:

Nail Your Facebook Ads for Your Next Launch! 3 Strategies the pros use to to grow your list and sell your products” by Farideh

The 5 Step Plan to Grow Your Email List (for Free) by Amy Porterfield(unfortunately, I experienced a lot of technical issues on my mobile device during this one so I plan to watch the replay of this one this week.)

I applied to a new affiliate partner!

I installed the “Sassy Social Share” plug-in. (This is the plug-in that will allow my social media links to float on the left side of the page). So far though, I have been unable to get this to work properly so I will get back to you on that when I’ve figured it out.

I attempted installing another plug-in called Rapidology, but I haven’t been able to find it yet. I will let you know how this process goes next week!

Personal Accomplishments:

I applied for and was approved for my first credit card! Now this is something that is kind of scary to me as this is the first credit card I’ve ever had. The reason I decided to get a credit card, was because I wanted to start taking advantage of all the perks credit cards have to offer. My husband and I agreed it should be in my name only though as I am much more responsible with our finances. We plan to use this card on purchase we already make each month such as groceries, gas, and a few bills that won’t charge us fees when using a credit card. This is a basic card so we can start getting familiar with the process of using a credit card and offers some cash back on our purchases so we’re pretty happy about that.

I met my Goodreads reading goal of 50 books this year! Honestly, I love reading. One of the reasons I want to build a business so I can work from home, is so I can have more time to read. There are so many wonderful books I am dying to read and I just don’t have time. Especially, when I am working a full-time job, building this blog, and developing some side hustles for extra income as well.

I went to the gym 4 times this week and had my 2nd free session with a personal trainer! My arms are very sore as I am typing this by the way.

I applied to a new mystery shopping company and completed my 1st shop through them this week. They are different from the other company I use as they only pay shoppers once a month. So I took this first shop to see how that process goes and to make sure they are legit. (This was a company recommended to me by a blogging friend but they are in the UK. I want to make sure the US side of the company pays as well. So I will let you know!

Extra Income I Earned: $8.42

(If you would like to learn how you can start earning extra income, check out my Resources page) Please note I do not include Google AdSense income here because it isn’t confirmed until a month later.

Extra Income I Received: $34.00

Mystery Shopping: $34.00

This Week’s Goals:

Originally, I decided that each week I will set 10 small goals for my blog. All of them should be helping me reach my bigger goals that I set each month. I am changing this up because I want to start focusing on one goal at a time and then adding more on as I complete them.

Implement Pinterest strategies I learned during Melissa Griffin’s training course. – Fail.I will work on this soon.

Next Week’s Goals:

Guys this blogging business is so much fun!!!! I am so committed and I can’t wait to see how my blog continues to grow! I hope that you are feeling inspired to start your own blog or to follow your own dreams! If you’d like to start your own blog, I created a tutorial on how to do so usingBlueHost. Check out myHow to Start a Blog Pageto start your own blog!

Share below what you have been doing this week to meet your blogging and personal goals!